Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/dh_bgwnx4/worldcatholicnews.com/wp-content/themes/jnews5745747/class/ContentTag.php on line 86
Italian Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, former director of the Holy See Press Office, explains Church’s struggle in Canada
This photo, taken on March 31, 2022 and handed out on April 1, 2022 by The Vatican Media, shows Pope Francis, center, posing with First Nations delegation members at the Vatican, during a series of week-long meetings of Canada’s Indigenous elders, leaders, survivors and youth at the Vatican. (Photo by Handout / VATICAN MEDIA / AFP)
In the days between March 28 and April 1 of this year, a delegation of representatives of the indigenous peoples of Canada traveled to Rome with some of their bishops for several meetings with Pope Francis. He promised to travel personally to Canada later this summer to continue the dialogue in their “indigenous territories.”
During the concluding meeting, the pope said, “It is my hope that our meetings during these days will point out new paths to be pursued together, will instill courage and strength, and lead to greater commitment on the local level. Any truly effective process of healing requires concrete actions. [1]
In these pages, we will attempt to briefly outline the context of the journey of truth and reconciliation with the indigenous peoples of Canada, in which the pope is intensely engaged, alongside the Canadian Church.
First of all, who and how many are these indigenous peoples? Today we speak of three distinct indigenous peoples. Initially, there are the First Nations, which include the groups, or bands that were present in these lands before the arrival of the Europeans. The term “First Nations” must be read in relation to the “successive” groups — French and English — for whom equal dignity is claimed. Today there are 634 groups with about 50 different languages.
In 2016, there were about one million people counted among the First Nations (exactly 977,230). Then there is the group of Métis (“mestizos”), born from the encounter between indigenous people and Europeans, and 587,545 people were counted in 2016. Canada is the only country where such a group is recognized with its own specific identity. The third component is that of the Inuit, the people of the northernmost lands, the Arctic lands. In the past they were commonly referred to as “Eskimos,” and they numbered 65,025 in 2016. In total, according to the 2016 census, they were 4.3 percent of Canada’s total population, but the number was soaring, having grown by 39 percent since 2006.
Read the entire article
Latest News
Credit: Source link
